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EnergyNet.com, Inc. is an online oil and gas property marketplace, founded on the principles that buyers and sellers should be able to conduct business on their own terms and timelines. In 1999, EnergyNet launched the first continuous oil and gas property marketplace for buyers and sellers, allowing them to participate in acquisition or divestiture activities in real time - 24/7/365. In 2011, EnergyNet sold the largest single oil and gas property online at $17.6 million and closed over $170 million in total sales for the year.

EnergyNet’s success over the past 12 years can be largely attributed to its dedication to customer service, its rapid sales cycle, strong market knowledge and strength in execution. In order to keep up with business growth and stay ahead, EnergyNet continues to look for ways to enhance employee productivity and exceed customer expectations.

We needed a way to better connect our business development representatives located in Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Denver, Amarillo and Detroit. Our competitive advantage comes from moving quickly and collaborating together on important customer needs. We wanted a solution beyond the inanimate phone conference – we wanted to be able to communicate face to face and quickly brainstorm solutions and potential deals on an ad hoc basis.Ethan House, Director of Marketing, EnergyNet

With the business needs well understood, the search began for video conferencing endpoints and bridging solutions that would enable meetings with up to 8 concurrent endpoints. After outfitting several locations with room systems, EnergyNet needed a way to enable collaboration with employees on the go via desktop/mobile solutions and enable multi-way video conferencing with the existing room systems.

Hardware MCUs Aren’t Cost-Effective Solutions

EnergyNet initially considered licensing the multi-point functionality built into their room system endpoints but realized that such a solution had limitations. First, their room endpoints only supported 4 concurrent participants. Second, the room system must participate in the call which would make on-the-go collaboration for end users much harder. Third, the call quality would start to degrade as each additional participant is added due to the limitations of the hardware.

EnergyNet next looked at traditional hardware MCUs to enable multi-way video calls, but it soon became apparent that a physical hardware MCU wouldn’t be a cost-effective option given the high capital expenditure and additional network/IT management required.

We looked at options for purchasing hardware MCU equipment, and even our vendor reluctantly agreed that they made little business sense for us. On top of the tremendous capital cost, there was significant cost to deploy, operate, and support the equipment internally. We didn’t want to waste time and money building a video platform; we wanted to start communicating.John Laur, IT Director, EnergyNet

The cost of implementing, deploying, and maintaining a hardware MCU often starts at 6 figures and for many businesses today, it’s not a capital expenditure easily justified. Instead of giving up on their vision to enable multi-way video collaboration, EnergyNet took its search to the cloud where additional benefits like built-in scalability, flexibility, on-going feature updates and pay-as-you-go plans are commonly touted.

After an initial search looking at hardware MCUs and cloud-based bridging services, it became clear that Blue Jeans was the right solution for EnergyNet.

With BlueJeans, we receive all the features available in a hardware-based MCU, plus interoperability with Lync, iPad, and iPhone endpoints, and the assurance that we have access to a platform that’s going to continue to keep up with growth and change.John Laur, IT Director, EnergyNet

Because the Blue Jeans service is instantly deployed, EnergyNet was able to immediately begin training users on its use. In no time EnergyNet’s business development teams were joining video calls from their remote locations using their laptops and room based systems. Since Blue Jeans believes in an all-inclusive approach to the service, EnergyNet was able to find both an easy and affordable multipoint solution that includes support for desktop and mobile video users. Using Blue Jeans, EngeryNet was able to solve a number of problems with a single solution and immediately start holding meetings that included everyone, without the need for additional hardware to be deployed in the field.

Usage of Blue Jeans is steadily increasing as the service is rolled out across EnergyNet for internal collaboration. The team foresees further use with customers in the near future where they can provide more face-to-face attention to customers without unnecessary travel.

We started making calls through BlueJeans on day one, and inside the first month, we are using the service more often than we had expected.John Laur, IT Director, EnergyNet